Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1887-05-06
@PRtMRosEs.

Beaconsfleld's Favorlte Flower.
To people of every nation the prim-
roses have word to say Of the happy
threshold that opens from winter to
spring. Every language of the north
ern zone recognizes them az the First
corners flowers nearest after the
snow. The English long ago named
them primrose. the French lrsmevere;
the Spanish, prinaula,. which gives
name to their natural order, prim,ulacee;
the Italians and Portuguese, prin,avera;
the Germans, fruhlings-blu,ne or die
schlusze-b1atnae; the Dutch. sleutel-
blame, and the Russian, 6uckwiza.
In Switzerland they hardly wait for
the snow to melt; if its sheet is thin
enough to transmit the sunlight they
break through. Someone relates that
traveller passing over the Faulhorn
saw "a field of snow where a horse had
passed; and the snow disappearing in
his tracks the little circles were brim-
full of flowers
LinnBus, not for their botanical
value, but for their brave little hearts,
called them 1.-THE precious English
people, who from childhood know the
sunny blossoms in open woods and
hedgerows. love them dearly; and an
English primrose, sent in glass case
to Australia, awakened such enthus-
iasm among the homesick miners that
its exhibition had to be protected by a
guard. Lord Beacons6eld loved the
pale primrose, called by the country
folk the ''irstling," the .'posie" and
the key of May" and on the 18th of
April it is worn in his memory.
The affection inspired by the sunny
little wildling is not lessened by it's
cultivation. 1t rewards care with the
most lavish profusion of blossoms. A
single plant produces in a season from
five hundred to a thousand blossoms,
and goes far to satisfy the expression
used of primroses by an experienced
florist: "They will flower themselves
to death if you will let them.'
The primroses that at this time of the
year are most attractive to US, and that
we include gladly among our house
plants to bloom through March till
Easter, are the Chinese primroses
P1anpetla sine'ssis). We find them in
char ming variety. from the primitive
simplicity of the single white and the
single red, the original Sine7asis,
brought from China in 162O-to the re-
fined surprises of their most intricately
cultivated ofspring-the double, and
double-fringed red, white, and purple;
the double-fringed carmine and white,
fecked with pale lilac; the red,
white, and purple, and white fern
leaved; the Strata, white striped with
red; the Kermeesiasa spzendens. brig ht
carmine with yellow eye, and new
and very beautiful variety. the Pezmcta-
to clegG'atiss5ma, rich crimson deeply
fringed and bordered with snow-white
fakes.
The soil for primroses is, generally
speaking, ''sandy loan and peat
One of our best florists recommends "a
good mixture of vegetable mold and
sand" The greatest success, however,
has attended a mixture Of ore-ha lf
sandy loan and one-half leaf-mold or de-
cayed refuse hops. The roots of theprim-
rose are threadlike and very fine, and
require the mechanical condition of the
soil to be yielding and easily penetrat-
ed. The plant should be sufficiently
wstered to keep the earth about it from
ever being so dry that it may be grated
by the hand. The temperature at
Towering time should be 65 degrees to
20 by day, and 50 degrees by so by
night,
Usually, in amateur cultivation, we
are content to buy our plants in bud,
and keep them in good condition until
the Towering is over: then, indeed,
unless cuttings have been made at the
proper time, the plants are exhausted
and they might as well die. But some
times among our primroses a variety
falls to us that we wish to perpetuate,
or we save the seeds of a particularly
lovely flower. We are interested then
to know something of the modes of
propagation, which in this case are
either by seeds, cuttings or divisions.
The seeds must be sown in April,
May, or early in June, or not until Sep
TENDER or October, as the heat of the
intervening months prevents vigorous
termination. Sow them in shallow seed
pans in the soil prepared with refuse
hops, and keep them we'll moistened in
a temperature of about 60 degrees in
the shade. From the seed-pans re-
move the plants to little pots, and shift
them to larger-sized pots three or four
times till they are ready to flower. To
propagate by division you have but to
separate the roots where the plant nat
urally parts, as the eye easily determ-
ines. II 1. z<@.z sz*.~,....
But the most expeditions and health
full mode Of propagation is by cuttings
from the side shoots. If these cuttings
are planted in March, and kept at a
temperature Of soil Of s. degrees, and,
an atmospheric temperature averaging
so degrees, and we'll watered, so they
do not once wilt, they will be rooted in